Other People's Money Page #7

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...New England Wire and Cable's

annual stockholders' meeting.

I'm William J. Coles, your president,

and I'm sure...

I'm sure that everyone here realizes

the most important item on the agenda...

...is the election

of the board of directors.

Now, there are staff members

passing out the ballots.

Right now, I am very proud

to introduce to you...

...a man who could accurately

be characterized as a legend...

...in the wire and cable industry.

The chairman of the board

of New England Wire and Cable...

...Mr. Andrew Jorgenson.

Give them hell, Andy!

It's good to see so many...

...familiar faces, so many old friends.

Some of you I haven't seen in years.

Thank you for coming.

Bill Coles, our able president,

in the annual report, has told you...

...of our year, of what we accomplished,

of the need for further improvements...

...our business goals for next year

and the years beyond.

I'd like to talk to you

about something else.

I want to share with you

some of my thoughts...

...concerning the vote that you're going

to make in the company that you own.

This proud company, which has survived

the death of its founder...

... numerous recessions,

one major depression and two world wars...

... is in imminent danger

of self-destructing.

On this day, in the town of its birth,

There is the instrument

of our destruction.

I want you to look at him in all of his glory.

"Larry the Liquidator."

The entrepreneur of post-industrial America

playing God...

...with other people's money.

The robber barons of old at least

left something tangible in their wake.

A coal mine, a railroad, banks.

This man leaves nothing.

He creates nothing.

He builds nothing.

He runs nothing.

And in his wake lies nothing

but a blizzard of paper to cover the pain.

Oh, if he said, "I know how to run

your business better than you"...

...that would be something

worth talking about...

...but he's not saying that.

He's saying, "I'm gonna kill you

because at this particular moment in time...

...you're worth more dead than alive."

Well...

...maybe that's true, but it is also true...

...that one day this industry will turn.

One day when the yen is weaker,

the dollar is stronger...

...or when we finally begin

to rebuild our roads, our bridges...

...the infrastructure of our country,

demand will skyrocket.

And when those things happen,

we will still be here...

...stronger because of our ordeal,

stronger because we have survived.

And the price of our stock

will make his offer pale by comparison.

God save us if we vote to take

his paltry few dollars and run.

God save this country

if that is truly the wave of the future.

We will then have become a nation

that makes nothing but hamburgers...

...creates nothing but lawyers

and sells nothing but tax shelters.

And if we are at that point in this country

where we kill something...

...because at the moment

it's worth more dead than alive...

...well...

...take a look around. Look at your

neighbor. Look at your neighbor.

You won't kill him, will you? No.

It's called murder, and it's illegal.

Well, this, too, is murder,

on a mass scale.

Only on Wall Street,

they call it maximizing shareholder value...

...and they call it legal.

And they substitute dollar bills

where a conscience should be.

Damn it!

A business is worth more

than the price of its stock.

It's the place where we earn our living,

where we meet our friends...

...dream our dreams.

It is, in every sense, the very fabric

that binds our society together.

So let us now, at this meeting...

...say to every Garfield in the land...

...here, we build things,

we don't destroy them.

Here, we care about more

than the price of our stock.

Here...

...we care about people.

Thank you.

And now I'd like to introduce

Mr. Lawrence Garfield.

Mr. Gar...

Excuse... Please.

Let's show a little courtesy,

ladies and gentlemen.

Mr. Garfield is the president

and the chairman of the board...

...of Garfield Investments.

Mr. Garfield.

Amen.

And amen.

And amen.

You have to forgive me.

I'm not familiar with the local custom.

Where I come from, you always say amen

after you hear a prayer.

Because that's what you just heard.

A prayer.

Where I come from...

...that particular prayer

is called the prayer for the dead.

You just heard the prayer for the dead,

my fellow stockholders...

...and you didn't say amen.

This company is dead.

I didn't kill it. Don't blame me.

It was dead when I got here.

It's too late for prayers.

For even if the prayers were answered

and a miracle occurred...

...and the yen did this

and the dollar did that...

...and the infrastructure did the other thing,

we would still be dead.

You know why?

Fiber optics.

New technologies.

Obsolescence.

We're dead, all right.

We're just not broke.

And do you know the surest way

to go broke?

Keep getting an increasing share

of a shrinking market.

Down the tubes.

Slow but sure.

You know, at one time...

...there must have been dozens

of companies making buggy whips.

And I'll bet the last company around

was the one that made...

...the best goddamn buggy whip

you ever saw.

Now, how would you have liked to have

been a stockholder in that company?

You invested in a business,

and this business is dead.

Let's have the intelligence,

let's have the decency...

...to sign the death certificate,

collect the insurance...

...and invest in something with a future.

"But we can't," goes the prayer.

We can't, because

we have a responsibility...

...a responsibility to our employees,

to our community.

What will happen to them?

I got two words for that:

Who cares?

Care about them? Why?

They didn't care about you.

They sucked you dry.

You have no responsibility to them.

For the last 10 years,

this company bled your money.

Did this community ever say,

"We know times are tough.

We'll lower taxes,

reduce water and sewer"?

Check it out. You're paying

twice what you did 10 years ago.

And our devoted employees who have taken

no increases for the past three years...

...are still making twice

what they made 10 years ago.

And our stock,

one-sixth what it was 10 years ago.

Who cares?

I'll tell you.

Me.

I'm not your best friend.

I'm your only friend.

I don't make anything?

I'm making you money.

And lest we forget,

that's the only reason...

...any of you became stockholders

in the first place.

You want to make money.

You don't care if they manufacture wire

and cable, fried chicken or grow tangerines!

You wanna make money!

I'm the only friend you've got.

I'm making you money.

Take the money.

Invest it somewhere else.

Maybe...

Maybe you'll get lucky,

and it'll be used productively.

And if it is, you'll create new jobs

and provide a service for the economy...

...and, God forbid,

even make a few bucks for yourselves.

And if anybody asks,

tell them you gave at the plant.

And by the way...

...it pleases me that I am called

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